J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Egyptian Details Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Leaves of Burdock c.1799-1800

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Leaves of Burdock’ c.1799-1800
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
Leaves of Burdock c.1799–1800
D03836
Turner Bequest LXVI 4
Ink, wash and white chalk on blue laid paper, 83 x 166 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘5’ (sic) bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXVI – 4’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are further studies of roadside plants on folios 6 recto (D03837; Turner Bequest LXVI 5) and 98 verso (D03935); compare the study of burdock in the contemporary Studies for Pictures sketchbook (Tate D04130; Turner Bequest LXIX 114). The burdock, with its large-scale, somewhat Baroque leaf forms, was a useful element in landscape foregrounds, much in use by the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painters, and was no doubt studied here with a view to its being incorporated into watercolour subjects.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘214’ (deleted), and ‘1163’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Leaves of Burdock c.1799–1800 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-leaves-of-burdock-r1180076, accessed 23 April 2024.